UN chief Guterres says he is hopeful about North Korea talks

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said that he has "hope" for negotiations with North Korea after it announced that it would be halting its nuclear tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

"I think there is hope (in North Korea negotiations). I believe that if things go well and I hope things will go well they will prove that the Security Council can be effective when it is united," said Guterres Saturday in Sweden.

He added that the recent diplomatic gains with Pyongyang had proven that the UN Security Council could be effective when its members worked together.

"When the Security Council is united and adopts, together, important measures, they have an impact on the ground and they make things change and today," he said.

"I believe, in North Korea, the path is open for the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and it also proves that diplomacy is the way to solve conflicts. It's not war, it's diplomacy," he added.

Earlier on Friday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said his country’s quest for nuclear weapons was “complete” and it “no longer needs” to test its weapons capability, the state-run KCNA news agency quoted him as saying. He added that he would also shut down a nuclear test site in the northern parts of North Korea to pursue economic growth and peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The significant development came ahead of diplomatic engagement with both South Korea and the US, and six days before a meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the volatile peninsula. The meeting is regarded as a precursor to an eagerly-awaited planned meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump, expected to be held at the end of May or beginning of June.

PressTV-North Korea to suspend nuclear, missile tests

North Korea says it will suspend its nuclear and missile tests and shut down a nuclear test site on Saturday.

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Peaceful efforts won in N Korea: Russia

Meanwhile, a high ranking Russian diplomat has stressed that North Korea's move is the result of collective efforts by Russia and China and that of US threats to wipe Pyongyang off the map.

Head of Russia's Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, Konstantin Kosachev said that work must go on before North Korea returns to the Non-Proliferation Treaty of Nuclear Weapons and begins cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.

He added that Pyongyang's change of heart was made possible through the work of all the countries involved in the talks.

"Keeping the channels of the dialogue with Pyongyang by Beijing and Moscow was not [a] less important instrument than public threats to ‘wipe off the map’ from Washington,” he said.

Washington and Pyongyang have no diplomatic relations. The US has imposed many rounds of sanctions on North Korea, has substantial military presence near the country, and numerously threatened to invade it.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula were running high in 2017. Trump’s threats last year prompted North Korea to carry out its most powerful nuclear test to date and launch intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States

But Kim expressed sudden interest in the resolution of disagreements with the South on New Year’s Day, and a series of overtures began.

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